Kate Neilan

Kate Neilan – Marketer

An award-winning book, brand and product marketeer with experience across bestselling fiction and non-fiction

Overview

An award-winning, innovative marketer, with experience in publishing, teaching and the arts. Having gained my PGCE in English at Cambridge, following my Literature degree at Durham, I went on to teach 11-18 year olds for a decade, including a promotion to Head of PSHE and Citizenship. Making the change to marketing was a big leap but I’m so glad I did it - I love the creative challenge, the problem-solving and the variety. I’ve run campaigns for a range of fiction and non-fiction titles across the VINTAGE hardback and paperback imprints, as well as leading on brand management for bestselling cookery author Rukmini Iyer. I was nominated for Marketing Strategy of the Year at the British Book Awards 2021 for my campaign for The Roasting Tin Around the World.
Services
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs Cooking, Food, Wine, & Spirits History Nature
Fiction
Contemporary Fiction Literary Fiction Mystery & Crime Thriller & Suspense
Awards
  • Shortlisted: Marketing Strategy of the Year, British Book Awards 2021
  • Winner: Best Adult Fiction Campaign (The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern), Book Marketing Society, Jan 2020
Certifications
  • CIM ACIM Member, The Chartered Institute of Marketing

Work experience

First News

Jan, 2023 — Present
As part of First News’ education marketing team, I raise awareness and secure subscription sales of our award-winning teaching and learning products through a range of channels, including email marketing, lead generation and nurture, organic and paid digital marketing, brand partnerships and strategy ideation.

Vintage (Penguin Random House UK)

Nov, 2018 — Jan, 2023 (about 4 years)
I ran campaigns for a range of fiction and non-fiction titles across the VINTAGE hardback and paperback imprints, as well as leading on brand management for bestselling cookery author Rukmini Iyer. I was nominated for Marketing Strategy of the Year at the British Book Awards 2021 for my campaign for The Roasting Tin Around the World. My campaigns included major fiction, non-fiction, cookery and gifting titles, promoted across print, digital, organic social, bookseller outreach, and innovative partnership work in order to ensure titles cut through the noise. My roster of titles also included debut literary fiction, crime, fiction in translation and established novelists, in hardback and paperback, for example Jo Nesbo, Ruth Ware, Anne Tyler, Salman Rushdie, Susan Hill and Jung Chang. In 2019, my colleague Sophie and I won the Q4 Book Marketing Society award in the Fiction category for our campaign for The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.

Adventures With Words

May, 2012 — Nov, 2018 (over 6 years)
I regularly podcast and blogged about books and more on the website. Since 2012, the blog grew its readership significantly and was featured in The Guardian. Our work was also featured on, and I was invited to become a contributor to the blog, one of just seven bloggers while the project lasted. I cohosted a bi-weekly podcast discussing books, television, films and all elements of storytelling, as well as hosting and producing a monthly podcast about Young Adult fiction with cohost Darran. The podcast had an international audience and was highlighted as 'new and noteworthy' in iTunes, with over 250,00 downloads and counting.

Projects

Advance Reading Copy aka Proof Design and Production

Proofs are often the first port of call for getting a book noticed by the right people and I'm proud that the proofs I've designed and produced have been noted as especially effective - for example the attached proofs for There There by Tommy Orange, Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler and What July Knew by Emily Koch

The Western Wind / Samantha Harvey - paperback publication

An example of a successful paperback marketing campaign with a clear objective to boost sales and increase visibility in physical bookshops.

Brand and Frontlist Campaign Management: Rukmini Iyer

I ran marketing activity for Rukmini Iyer's cookbooks from her debut, The Roasting Tin. I was instrumental in identifying the brand and sales potential of the series and in designing and implementing a year-round brand strategy which encompassed social media growth, video content and launching a community newsletter as well as seasonal promotion of catalogue titles and new title launch campaigns.

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